The Holocaust and Halakhah

The Holocaust and Halakhah is a study of the determined efforts of the Jews of Europe to conform to the patterns and norms of Halakhic.
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  1. Pretending and Imagination in Animals and Children.
  2. In the Dragons Claws: The Story of Rostam and Esfandiyar from the Persian Book of Kings.
  3. The Evolution of Revolutions: How We Create, Shape, and React to Change.
  4. Halachah und Schoah!

Be the first to ask a question about Holocaust and Halakhah. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. May 29, Gary rated it it was amazing. Halakha could be translated as the "Jewish Way" and encompasses both law in the purely juridical sense and ethics in those areas were value choices must be made and ideals implemented. This book describes the various Halachic questions and rulings on issues relating to the Holocaust. The book deals with questions as to whether it was acceptable according to Halakha for a Jew to try to save his or her life in times of murderous persecution by publicly embracing conversion to a non-Jewish faith.

The Halakha could be translated as the "Jewish Way" and encompasses both law in the purely juridical sense and ethics in those areas were value choices must be made and ideals implemented.


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  4. Religious Studies: "The Holocaust and Halakhah" by Rabbi Irving Rosenbaum.
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The permissibility of buying a family member their right to live in exchange for the life of another Jew, and how Jewish observance of law and of fasts and holidays could or should have been observed. In his forward the editor of the series Norman Lamm reminds us of the findings of Professor Uriel Tal in suggesting that the Nazis focused on Judaism no less than the Jews as their major enemy. The confrontation between Jews and Nazis was thus formulated as not only political and racial but also as ideological- indeed theological'.

This similar ideological battle against Judaism has been taken up by such ideologies as Communism, revolutionary leftism and Islamism. The book recounts an incident where a kapo who is a Communist political prisoner discovers a Jew carrying a tallit katon. The kapo is engaged at the Jews steadfast belief in G-D and beats him murderously. The book focuses on Holocaust-related responsa literature rulings issued by rabbinic authorities in reply to halakhic questions.

It contains not only questions that arose during the Holocaust itself, but also ones that arose in its aftermath about a wide range of issues. For example, there is the matter of agunot literally, "chained women" who did not receive a get, or Jewish bill of divorce from their husbands who wanted to remarry after all trace of their husbands was lost during the Holocaust, yet were still uncertain if their husbands were indeed dead. There are questions about Shabbat and kashrut observance during the difficult conditions of the Holocaust. There is the issue of running away from the ghetto when it was clear that the Nazis would take revenge on those remaining behind.

There is the question of whether a former capo an inmate given a position of authority in a concentration camp can serve as a cantor and lead prayer services in synagogue the answer: It is notable that those who ask the questions are so meticulous about the fine points of halakha, even under the terrible conditions of the Holocaust. For example, one question deals with the issue of going outside while carrying the identity card issued by the Germans, when being caught without it would mean imprisonment under harsh conditions, or worse. The questioner is concerned about violating the ban on carrying objects from the private domain to the public domain on Shabbat.

The Holocaust and Halakhah

The answer does not provide a blanket exemption from this rule of halakha; instead, it says that someone who goes out on the Sabbath carrying the document does indeed have a basis for such an action i. But this should not be publicized, so that it does not become the norm. Another issue troubling the questioners and rabbinic authorities was the question of posing as Christians during the Holocaust, and the postwar status of those who were baptized during the war.

Many of the questions deal with this issue, because in the halakhic perception, Christianity is considered "idol worship" which is not permitted even in life-threatening situations. And indeed when it came to this issue, the rabbis tended to be more stringent. That was the case when Rabbi Asheri did not allow a Jew from Kovno to merely buy a forged Christian identity card, without actually converting. In this context, the book also cites the testimony of the Admor, the Hasidic rabbi of Sanz, who refused to purchase conversion certificates for himself and his family; his wife and 11 children were murdered.

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Rabbi Efrati permitted people to go into hiding in the home of a gentile, but prohibited Jews from declaring that they were Christians and of course, adopting Christian customs. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, on the other hand, was asked after the Holocaust if a woman and her daughters who were baptized must undergo a process of "returning to Judaism" by shaving their hair and immersing in the mikveh ritual purification bath. His answer was no. He only noted that the woman must fast every year on the date she was baptized. The daughters were exempt even from that.

That is the case with the book "Mima'amakim" From the Depths by Rabbi Efraim Asheri, who was in the Kovno ghetto, and "Alei Merorot" Leaves of Bitterness , a book of the responsa and recollections of Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aaronson, who was in several work camps and death camps. In this context, Levin says, "the most prominent rabbis mentioned in the book weren't necessarily the most prominent rabbis in Europe at the time. For it was known to everyone that after the Nazis had mercilessly slain and slaughtered the Jews, they would plunder any object of value that had belonged to their victims.

Whatever was left of insignificant wealth, such as the objects about which the inquiry was being made, were left HEFKER--free for everyone to take. Thus there need be no qualms about taking them Therefore, in the instant case, Rabbi Oshry ruled that it was certainly permissible to take the objects left behind by the martyred family. Author Rosenbaum describes what happened at the end of the German occupation, "One of those who was digging in the ruins of the ghetto found the chest of books which had been hidden there. He recognized their value immediately and exulted in his find, because he believed they were now his property in accordance with Jewish law in the case of anyone who finds ownerless and abandoned articles.

News of the find spread and--wouldn't you know it--the following happened, "Suddenly, one of the men recognized his own property. Among the volumes were several which had belonged to him--inscribed with his name, and the names of his father and grandfather. Since the volumes were valuable, they had been handed down as a family inheritance. He began to demand of the finder that they be returned to him.

Where Do Jewish Laws Come From? Intro to Torah, Talmud, Halacha

The finder maintained that he had a legitimate claim to the books, as one who found an ownerless and abandoned article, or one who rescues an article from the bottom of the sea. The two claimants asked Rabbi Oshry to render a decision in accordance with the Torah.

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Even though the disputed property had never actually fallen into the hands of the Nazis, and the original owner was very much alive and very unambiguously the original owner of some of the books, Rabbi Oshry ruled in favor of the finder. Author Rosenbaum elaborates on Oshry's reasoning behind his finder-favorable ruling, "Certainly, says Rabbi Oshry, the original owners of these books abandoned all hope of recovery once the Nazis had taken them.

Holocaust and Halakhah by Irving J. Rosenbaum

Not only their possessions but also their very lives were in the hands of the Germans to do with as they wished. The Germans were a conquering army. Some technicalities came into play yet, as pointed out by Rosenbaum, "Rabbi Oshry nevertheless concludes that in view of the original owner's undoubted abandonment of all hope for recovery, and by virtue of the factor of the finder's possession, the books are now, according to the Halakhah, the property of the finder. Rabbi Oshry's decisions, described by Rosenbaum above, soundly debunk these media Polonophobic escapades.

Holocaust and Halakhah (The Library of Jewish law and ethics)

It is in no sense immoral for the property of the dead to become the property of the living, and for the finder to acquire title to the property abandoned by choice or circumstance by the original owner. In no sense had Poles "stolen" Jewish property, and in no sense are Poles guilty of "unjust enrichment". The property of the Jews had become booty not only of the German conquerors of Poland, but also of the ensuing Soviet conquerors "liberators" of Poland--both directly and as the booty of the Soviet-imposed Communist puppet government ruling Poland on behalf of the USSR. So the post-Jewish property now unambiguously belongs to the finders the Poles , not the onetime owners Jews , and certainly not to the self-appointed Jewish organizations that, so many decades after the events, have suddenly and conveniently "discovered" title to these properties for the purpose of their own selfish profiteering.

The enormity and presumed exceptionality of the Holocaust, nowadays often cited as a license for special rights for Jews, could have been turned around. That is, the reputed annihilation of the local Jewry could have made it easier for Poles to lay claim to post-Jewish property--based on the reasonableness of the presumption that the pre-WWII Jewish property owners are dead. The media focused on the rare exceptions in which there were sometimes-lethal conflicts. One is the staleness of the newly-imagined claims--based as they are on long-settled property transfers that had taken place now 75 years ago.

Another layer of YEI'USH is the rather obvious fact that the vast majority of Poland's Jews had not survived to re-assume possession of most of the communal properties synagogues, cemeteries, etc. Jun 05, Gary rated it it was amazing. This book describes the various Halachic questions and rulings on issues relating to the Holocaust.

The book deals with questions as to whether it was acceptable according to Halakha for a Jew to try to save his or her life in times of murderous persecution by publicly embracing conversion to a non-Jewish faith.